Princess Charlene brings Riviera Water Bike Challenge to Monaco

Princess Charlene has been training in Monaco on the Schiller S1 water bike since Christmas. Photo: Kasia Wandycz/Palais Princier

In a world premier sporting event, Monaco will host the Riviera Water Bike Challenge (RWBC) on Sunday, June 4, 2017, in support of the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation.

Leaving the port of Nice and heading east to arrive at the prestigious Monaco Yacht Club, 40 participants will make up 10 international teams pedalling Schiller S1 water bikes in a 21-kilometre relay race. There will be two sports personalities per team plus two places available for amateurs, to be selected by raffle on March 24.

The Schiller S1 water bike, developed by American Judah Schiller, reportedly on a dare, “uses an optimised propeller, proprietary gear box and Gates Carbon Drive belts”. It’s essentially a bike atop of parallel hulls, much like a catamaran, with a 2-foot (0.6 metre) wide frame. In calm waters, the average speed is 8 mph, although pros can reach more than 10 mph.

Mr Schiller attended the Monaco Yacht Show two years ago with a prototype of the human-powered watercraft that happened to catch the eye of Gareth Wittstock.

Mr Wittstock, who is also involved in this month’s South Africa-Monaco Rugby Exchange, eventually took the Schiller S1 water bike out for a spin at Larvotto Beach. He was hooked.

He came up with the idea of the first-ever water bike relay race, a fundraiser, with all of the proceeds to go to his sister’s charity, the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, established in 2012 to educate children in water safety and provide swimming lessons.

Monies raised from the Riviera Water Bike Challenge will go towards the relocation of the Monegasque Pavilion from the Expo Milano 2015 to Loumbila, Burkina Faso, where it will be reconstructed as a first aid and CPR training complex.

This project, a joint partnership with the Foundation, the Monaco Red Cross and the Burkinabe Red Cross, will include an Aquatic Rescue Center, as financed by the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, to allow the training of “rescuers and lifeguards from Burkina Faso and other countries in the region”. Director of Aquatic Rescue Center of Monaco, Pierre Frolla, an ambassador to the Foundation, as well as four-time freediving world record holder, will oversee the development.

The mission will include a water-safety programme and swimming lessons available to the thousand local high school students, many of whom have never had an opportunity to be in a pool, but are often at risk of drowning during floods.

Princess Charlene. Photo: Kasia Wandycz/Palais Princier

To bring attention to the Riviera Water Bike Challenge, Princess Charlene will be hosting a benefit gala, her first in fact, on Friday, March 24, at the Monaco Yacht Club.

In addition to an evening in the company of the Princely couple and prominent sports personalities, several spots to participate in the inaugural June relay will be raffled off, as well as the ten Schiller S1 bikes that will be raced on the day. There are a limited number of gala tables available in three packages: Ruby, Sapphire, and Diamond. To reserve, contact rwbc2017@gmail.com

A test day is planned for April at the Monaco Yacht Club, where people can drop by to see the Schiller S1.

Christos Fiotakis, who represented Greece in the 100m sprints and now runs Elite Fitness Monaco, with a clientele that includes Felipe Massa, raves about the S1 water bike. “My thighs exploded,” he told Monaco Life.

[caption id="attachment_26287" align="alignnone" width="640"] Photo: Ed Wright Images[/caption]
In 2002, Action Innocence was set up in Monaco to talk to school children and adolescents about the dangers of the internet, which nowadays includes cyberbulling, sexual predators, pornography and damaged reputations.
Every year, with the cooperation of the Department of Education, the non-profit organisation has a team of trained psychologists that visit each primary and secondary school throughout the Principality, to explain the associated risks that come with online connectivity and to try to instil an ethic and proper conduct while using the internet.
“We don’t shock the students,” Nick Danziger, Vice-President of Action Innocence and award winning photographer, told Monaco Life. “We work very hard to create an awareness in the classroom. And this also means that no child hears the same message twice from our association.”
Over the past fifteen years, more than 53,000 children have benefited from Action Innocence’s prevention program.
Listening to Nick, who sits in on as many of the classroom sessions as he can, my jaw hangs open as I learn what some young people are looking at on their phones, or what they are being exposed to in the world’s best-selling video game – rape or, in another game, as one boy described, the ability to “buy women”; their parents ignorant of the game’s Advisory Warning.
Founded by its president, Louisette Lévy-Soussan Azzoaglio, Action Innocence has one annual fundraiser, the spectacular charity Christmas tree auction in the lobby of the Hotel de Paris, which will take place this Thursday, December 14, at 6:30 pm, in the presence of the association’s patron, HSH Prince Albert II.
“Each year, between 26 to 33 trees are donated by benefactors, and we are hopeful to raise €80,000,” Nick stated.
Part of the monies raised go towards the purchase of safe webcams, ones that cannot be pirated and used by someone with bad intentions, which Action Innocence provides to all students in its prevention campaign.
The funds are also used to pay the salaries of the psychologists and to provide various tools such as educational mousepads and pay for printed materials like posters and helpline cards.
The Christmas tree auction on Thursday is open to the public but get there early, it’s standing room only. If you can’t make it but want to donate €100, download a form from their website.
Action Innocence will hold its next informative meetings for parents on Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 8 pm.

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[caption id="attachment_18479" align="alignnone" width="640"] President Christopher Foyle with Catherine Foyle, Roger Shine, Mike Hurrell and other members of ALM.[/caption]
Monaco Air League held its annual award ceremony on Tuesday, June 20, with 150 people in attendance on Sir Stelios’s terrace.
Patrons Sir Stelios, Prince Alvaro de Orleans-Borbon and Thierry Boutsen (Dame Shirley Bassey, the association’s fourth patron, was unable to attend) presented a total of 13 scholarships, as well as three awards to young people for the Alvaro de Orleans Borbon Essay Prize, and three awards for the Air League Design a Tie Competition.
Christopher Foyle, President and Founder of Monaco Air League, told Monaco Life, “In addition, we pledged 25 prizes to those students at the Collège Charles III and the Lycée Albert Ier who have successfully completed the Brevet d'initiation aéronautique – the BIA, or Brevet – which is the GCSE of aviation studies. These will be presented to the students at their end of term prize givings on June 28 and 30.”
Earlier this year, on April 29, the League funded the entire Brevet BIA class from the lycèe, a dozen students, to have glider flights in Fayence.
Monaco Air League has also pledged to assist both the Disabled Flyers Unit at the Cuers-Pierrefeu airport and the “Dream to Fly” project run by Monika Chambet, which helps terminally ill young people achieve their ambition of having personal flights.
Mr Foyle pointed out, “We are supporting Clemens Toussaint in his aim to turn Albenga Airport, which he purchased about two years ago, into a much enhanced Monaco Riviera Airport for executive jets.”
Future plans for Monaco Air League include a potential arrangement for young people to undertake work experience at the Airbus factory in Toulouse and this August, the League will again be taking a group of up to 12 young people to Doncaster Airport to be involved with the Avro Vulcan nuclear bomber project, and to work in the classic aircraft museum there.
A group outing has been fixed for the February 13, 2018, to tour behind the scenes at the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch and visits are also planned to the French equivalent – the BIA – as well as behind the scenes at Nice Airport, the air base of Patrouille de France with the French Air Force flying display team, and the Airbus factory at Toulouse.
The second edition of the Monaco Air League awards evening included two draws, one for a hot air balloon ride with the Monaco Hot Air Balloon Club – which uses a new ecological balloon enabling 70% energy savings – and another with Surf Air, the new members-only private scheduled air service from Cannes-Mandelieu to London Luton.
Monaco Air League’s committee members comprise Christopher and Catherine Foyle, Francois Gautier, Trevor Gabriel, Ian and Vanessa Ilsley, Susan Webb , Ed Wright, Basil Nalbantis and Bruce Hutchison. Other Committee Members are: Roger Shine, Andrew Lampert, Lee Robinson, Kevin Marsh, William Easun, Nicholas Budd and Liz Roberts.
Article first published June 26. All images: AterlierMike.com